There are seismic shifts taking place in our increasingly connected society. Mobile phones and devices aren’t just for staying in touch—they’re instruments of commerce, learning and entertainment. Social networking sites are creating communities of interest around any topic you can imagine—and whatever you’re into, there’s an app for that. Video is everywhere. Not just in the board room and on the desktop but the office lobby, the medical center, the sports arena, even the bottom on the ocean. And perhaps most importantly, Read More »

In my last blog, I asked the question “Is Collaboration Worth It? Every day, customers tell us collaboration is critical to their ability to compete—something top of mind right now. Why does collaboration matter? From our research and interviews with business leaders, we attribute the growing importance of collaboration to three fundamental trends:

Competition comes from anywhere and everywhere. The barriers to entry are lower than ever, and you cannot predict who will enter your market next. It might be a startup in India, China, Africa or Eastern Europe—or competition from another industry. How do you stay ahead when you don’t know which organizations you’ll compete with next month or next year? Read More »

New media and collaboration technologies have the potential to transform higher education in terms of the classroom, the learning process, the relationship between students and instructors, and how institutions conduct academic research. While much of the industry discussion revolves around use of consumer tools and social network sites like Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, Cisco’s educational customers also see tremendous opportunity to increase student engagement and drive their own institutional strategies with “enterprise class” social software as well.

Since Cisco first announced Quad, we have had conversations with dozens of colleges and universities regarding the role enterprise social software and Cisco Quad can play in transforming education. Cisco Quad is an enterprise collaboration platform that brings people together to share ideas and content, collaborate on projects, and interact using chat, voice or video, regardless of where people are located.

Below, we’ve outlined four ways in which educational institutions are telling us enterprise social software is helping, or can transform the way learning, research, and academic advisement is crafted, delivered and consumed:

1. The 24/7 interactive classroom: Instructors often struggle to deliver a collaborative environment for their students that is secure and supports multiple access methods such as mobile. Technology like Quad can enable students to interact in a secure, policy-based manner that extends the classroom conversation beyond physical walls. Courses partially or wholly targeted at off-campus students can similarly benefit from enhancing the class-like experience for remote students. For example, at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the cross country MBA students based in the US, England, India and other countries are using Quad to create virtual working groups, find people with common interests, share files or videos with other students working on similar projects and instantly start video conferences or chat sessions. Quad provides students with the ability to interact, ask questions and share ideas with professors/faculty/tutorial assistants anytime, as opposed to only during fixed faculty office hours. It can also drive improved accountability on team projects, as content and comments are tracked in activity feeds and in project communities by both participating students and faculty leads.

2. Serendipitous Research: Quad contains several features, such as an activity feed that compiles microblog posts from students and staff and allows a snapshot view of a person’s current activities. These dynamic updating functionalities can facilitate broader cross-departmental collaboration, for students and researchers alike. Security features ensure that research that needs to be confidential is shared in a secure and safe manner. As researchers update their statuses with exciting discoveries or frustrating problems, or create posts, upload videos or otherwise document their work, this content becomes accessible to hundreds of fellow university researchers through activity feeds and searches, making it possible for providential inter-disciplinary connections to be made and new insights to be generated. Read More »

It used to be that everyone had to be at the office to work. Phone, desk, computer, email–that was it. We’ve come quite a long way since those days and I personally am thankful. Using WebEx, Jabber, video, and a phone means I can work at home in my sweats on most days. I’m sure you have your own list of reasons that may or may not include a relaxed work-at-home attire.

This week at the Collaboration Summit in Miami, collaboration took a huge leap forward. Unified Communications via Jabber can now happen via a Web plug-in, so customers can use IM, Android, click-to-call and click-to-video from Apple, BlackBerry, Windows, and even Nokia devices.

Not only does collaboration offer great benefits to your own work experience, but these tools are a great way for partners to differentiate, too, by offering a host of integrated solutions and services to customers. And with channel programs, incentives, sales and marketing resources, partners can earn even more profits on the countless ways to customize collaboration solutions.

Plus, the Jabber Software Development Kit means new collaboration-enabled applications. (More details on the Collaboration blog.)

Let’s see, what else happened this week? New versions of WebEx, partners, parties, demos, and Cius ambassadors roaming the halls.Read More »

Imagine being able to communicate with your coworkers easily despite their location or endpoint, and seamlessly escalating a conversation over IM to a voice or video call from a single client.

Last week at Enterprise Connect in Orlando, Cisco announced Cisco Jabber, a new application that helps enterprise users consolidate all of their communications: presence, instant messaging (IM), voice and video, voice messaging, desktop sharing and conferencing. Cisco Jabber provides integration across devices, including PCs, Macs, tablets and smart phones. Jabber provide users with a unified client they can deploy across on-premise and cloud-based options.

Listen below as Laurent Philonenko, Vice President and General Manager for Cisco’s Unified Communications Business Unit, describes the new Cisco Jabber solution and what it means for enterprise communications.

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